“Here’s to you, dear Janko, on your birthday...” On the ways of addressing people in Slovak (and something over and above that)

Abstract

Abstract Ján Bosák’s passing away before reaching of his 80th birthday has given an impulse for a reflection on the ways of addressing people in Slovak, with special regard to vocative and non-vocative forms of the name Ján [Slovak equivalent of John]. The attention is partially also given to comparison with Czech – in contrast to standard Slovak where vocative forms have declined similarly as in the dialects of Central Slovakia, the vocative forms in standard Czech are still alive. Besides the use of nominative hypocoristic/diminutive forms Jano, Janko, Janík, Janíčko as common ways of addressing people, the study also mentions the use of a compound addressing with possessive pronoun in post-position (Jano môj, Janko/Janík/Janíčko môj) which represents a specific substitute for the vocative forms in Slovak. In addition, the study deals with the vitality of vocative case in Slovak dialects and in common communication. It also offers a few probes into “textual life” of the historic vocative form Jane, especially in ethnoculturally rare Slovak midsummer songs (e.g. Jane, Jane, Vajane) and in the spiritual poetry of Ján Hollý.